In recent years there has been a good deal of discussion of equality’s
place in the best account of distribution or distributive justice. One
central question has been whether egalitarianism should give way to a
principle requiring us to give priority to the worse off. In this article,
I shall begin by arguing that the grounding of equality is indeed insecure
and that the priority principle appears to have certain advantages over
egalitarianism. But I shall then claim that the priority principle itself is ungrounded and that the priority principle should itself give way to a
sufficiency principle based — indirectly, via the notion of an impartial
spectator — on compassion for those who are badly off.